A/N: It's been a very long time, but hopefully I still have some readers for this series, because I have finished it. All that needs to happen is editing and posting, which should be fairly regular from here on out. My apologies for the long delay, and thanks for all of your kindness to me so far. This one is from the perspective of Sabé, the decoy handmaiden.

Sabé Aguilae Kylia

She was gone. There could be no doubt of that any longer, no more wild hope held secret and deep within the heart that it was not her, that there had been some mistake. There she was, lying in state, awaiting the funeral procession that would lead her, at last, to rest. Or rather, there was her body, a cold and empty form, but it no longer held her within. She was gone.

And I wasn't even there.

I was once Padmé Naberrie Amidala's handmaiden, her decoy, her loyal bodyguard. That's what she called me: "my loyal bodyguard." We both wore the makeup and the headdress and the costume of the Queen, and we complained to each other about how uncomfortable it was. Except that she underwent that discomfort in the service of the Naboo, and I underwent that discomfort in the service of her. Whenever I put on that disguise, I knew that I could die for her, and I would readily have done so. It was my job to protect her, and more than my job.

But to tell the truth, she was never the heroine to me that she was to everybody else. How could she be? I knew her far too well for that. We were teenaged girls together. There was a time when, ceremonial makeup or no, I could read every expression on her face, decipher every tone of her voice, and read the thought behind every word she said. Nearly always I knew what she would say almost before she did. I had been inside her head and knew the way she thought, what she felt, her secrets, her fears, her problems; I knew exactly what she needed to make her feel better and, most times, she knew the same about me. I was her best friend, and she was mine.

It was the job that forced us together this way, but a closeness like that can never completely disappear. I left her service, began working for Captain Panaka and Sio Bibble, married, had a child, but our friendship remained. Perhaps that's why we spoke so little in the last months of her life—I felt hurt about it at the time, but of course—I knew her too well. I would have been able to tell that something… She didn't tell me she was pregnant, but I couldn't be angry about that because at least I knew who that baby's father was. She told me she loved Anakin Skywalker; she couldn't hide it from me. I was her best friend. And I couldn't help but think that I could have stopped all this somehow, if only she'd talked to me, if only I'd known.

The handmaiden mentality never disappears, either. I kept thinking, I should at least have been there. I should have been there to save her—to die for her, or to see her die. I should have been there to embrace her, to cry with her, to put up her hair. I should have been there to comfort her, like she comforted Cordé on the Coruscant landing platform. Cordé and Versé did die in her place that day, just as any of us would have done. And had not done.

The handmaidens knew what had happened before almost anyone else. Dormé commed me first, from Padmé's parents' house, then Rabé and Yané, who commed Eirtaé and Saché… I was out in the garden and I collapsed onto a bench. I didn't believe it could be true. After all the close shaves we'd had, I never actually thought it could end like this. I was her decoy, her shadow, and it felt like a part of myself had been ripped away.…

She was my best friend. All of Naboo mourned her, crying and moaning in the streets because she was such a good leader and there was so much she might still have done. I saw this, and I still don't quite understand it. They didn't even know her.

I'd lost my best friend.

I knelt before the body of my best friend and prayed and wept. I was one of the few people even allowed into this private funeral ceremony. There were Padmé's family—her poor parents, her grandmother, her sister and the little nieces whom she had adored. Bail Organa and a few Senators who had known her personally. Sio Bibble, Captain Panaka, Boss Nass and Jar Jar Binks. And her handmaidens. We had all been invited, and we all came. We would always come when Padmé called. Not because she was our Queen or our Senator, but because she was Padmé.

Padmé Naberrie Amidala loved her handmaidens. But we all failed her in the end. We weren't there when she needed us most. I let my eyes drift up to the altar again and wished, for the sake of Naboo, that it was me up there. Me in her place. Me as a decoy. To shield her, in that one last act—yes, even that was preferable to this. And I was all the more miserable because I knew Padmé would hate me to be thinking this, would tell me I was wrong. I had parents, a husband, a baby son… But I didn't have the ability to single-handedly save a planet. Only she had that. Only she had that stupid, selfless devotion to Naboo. Millions loved her for it, and still she died alone.

I should have been there, but I wasn't, and she died alone—my best friend.

I should have been there. I couldn't stop thinking it. One by one I met the eyes of each of them—Rabé, Eirtaé, Yané, Saché, Dormé, Ellé, Moteé—and knew they were each thinking the same. We were handmaidens. This was our job.

Of course I knew that I didn't work for her anymore, it wasn't my job anymore… but that didn't matter. It didn't matter for any of us. We could not stop being Padmé's handmaidens.

She was gone. Without her… what were we to do?